Shah Selbe & Jacob Lewallen // Wild Technology: Adventures with Open Source Sensors, Drones & National GeographicOver the last few years, Conservify has built open source conservation technologies for use in the field on National Geographic expeditions and through our network of scientists and conservationists. This has taken us to places like Peru's Boiling River, Botswana's Okavango Delta, Canada's Banff National Park, Congo's lowland gorilla reserves, and many more. We will discuss some of our experiences in building open source sensors/IoT, drones, and other tools to help better protect and understand the planet we live in. We will also talk about FieldKit, a joint hardware/software platform, and architecture that fuses the best of open science and open storytelling. We will discuss how big data/IoT formed the foundation for live-data expeditions, and how it's helping to protect one of the last untouched places on earth.

Shah Selbe is the founder of Conservify and a National Geographic Explorer Fellow. He started his career as a spacecraft propulsion engineering but now considers himself a conservation technologist, where he works with communities, NGOs, and developing countries to identify and deploy technologies that can help with their greatest conservation challenges.

Jacob Lewallen is a principal engineer at Conservify and has been a critical part of the team that sent technology to the Okavango Delta, Boiling River, and Banff National Park. He is leading the effort behind FieldKit and travels to the field often to deploy the technologies developed in our Los Angeles-based lab. Jacob has been a part of the maker movement for some time now, heavily involved in the operation of makerspaces, and in mentoring friends in software and woodworking.

Alex Williams // A Childhood with the Open Source Hardware MovementHaving grown up with the open source movement, it's influenced how Alex approach all aspects of engineering projects, from designing for distributed manufacturing to end-user documentation. Alex will recount his experiences with the movement and notable takeaways, up to the underwater glider, the project that he developed that ended up winning the 2017 Hackaday Prize and Alex discuss the influence the prize had on the project.

Alex Williams is a young maker from the UK who has spent the last decade working on hardware projects, from assembling a first generation home desktop printer aged 10 to more recently developing complex electromechanical hardware platforms. His latest hardware project, the open source underwater glider, won the 2017 Hackaday prize. At the beginning of the year he started at the University of Cambridge, UK, however, he dropped out after a few weeks of study to pursue real-world hardware development.

Public TransportationUsing the Metro Goldline trains is quick and easy. It takes about 20 mins from Union Station in downtown LA to Del Mar Station, which is less than 2 minutes walk from our front door. Trains run about every 10 mins during the day and 20 mins at night from 11pm-2am.

There are also buses that serve Old Town Pasadena. The nearest intersection is FAIR OAKS/DEL MAR BLVD, PASADENA, CA 91105. You can find timetables or use the Metro Trip Planner at metro.net